Chapter 3

NATHANIEL'S POV

I set the phone down and looked at Chloe, sprawled across the hotel bed in one of my shirts, and told myself that this didn't take anything away from Vivi.

Vivi was the first woman I'd ever wanted enough to earn. Five years of being careful with her, patient with her, married to a version of restraint that had never once come naturally. Chloe didn't require any of that. Chloe just wanted me.

I wasn't going to lose either one. I'd built an empire out of never choosing between things I wanted.

Chloe reached for me again, pouting at the interruption, and I was still deciding whether I had the energy for her mood when my phone rang. It was my assistant.

"Sir, I checked the hospital records like you asked. Mrs. Lowe wasn't with her friend yesterday. She went alone. To obstetrics."

I sat up.

"Obstetrics," I repeated, the word landing strange in my mouth.

"Yes, sir. Thought you'd want to know."

I looked at the door Vivi wasn't behind, three hundred miles away in a house I'd just told her to go ahead and leave for a few days, and felt something in my chest go very, very still.

Was she pregnant?

I ran the numbers again in my head — the fertility panel from before the wedding, the specialist's flat assessment: under one percent. That was the whole reason a fake certificate had felt safe in the first place. No chance of complications. No chance of anyone getting hurt by anything I did on the side.

Obstetrics didn't have to mean what I'd panicked and assumed. Women went in for all kinds of reasons. I told myself that until my pulse settled, and mostly believed it.

But the fact that she'd gone alone, and hidden it from me — that still sat wrong.

"I'm going home this weekend," I told Chloe. "Stay with my mother if you don't want to be alone. She'd love the company."

Chloe's mouth went thin. My mother lit up every time Chloe's name came up lately, more than she'd ever done for Vivi in five years, but that wasn't a comparison I wanted to make out loud.

"I'll listen," Chloe said, not listening at all. "But I really can't stand not seeing you for two whole days. Can I come with you?"

I should have said no. A year ago I would have said no without thinking about it.

"Fine. But you don't breathe a word to Vivi about us."

"I promise." She was already smiling like she'd won something. "Vivi's never suspected anything before. Why would this time be different?"

I didn't have a good answer for that. I chose not to look for one.

VIVIAN'S POV

I'd just finished listing the last of the bags for sale when I heard the front door and looked up to find both of them standing in my entryway with a suitcase, like they'd been invited.

"Vivi." Chloe's voice, sugar-sweet, the same line she always used. "My parents are traveling again and I hate being alone. Can I stay a few days?"

I didn't answer. I just looked at her until she reached over and tugged Nathaniel's sleeve.

He stepped in front of her fast, all concern, like he could cover the gap with enough of it. "Baby, I'm back. Are you really not feeling well? My assistant mentioned you went to a check-up alone the other day, not with Lauren. If something's wrong, don't hide it from me."

Of course he'd had someone watching me.

I'd deleted the appointment records the moment I got home that first night — some instinct ahead of the rest of me already understanding what kind of man I'd married. Small mercy. There was nothing for his assistant to actually find.

"It's nothing. Just a cold." I kept my palms flat at my sides so he wouldn't see them shake. "I didn't want you worrying from three states away."

He held my gaze a beat too long, the way he used to when he was trying to memorize me, then shrugged out of his coat and handed it over.

Her perfume was on it. Faint, floral, unmistakable.

I hung it up anyway. My hands didn't shake this time.

Chloe wandered the living room complaining that Rosa wasn't around, that she didn't know how they'd eat, tossing it out like a question with exactly one acceptable answer.

"You've been home for days with no one cooking," Nathaniel said. "You must not have been eating properly."

"I manage."

"Turns out Vivi cooks," Chloe said, delighted, like she'd discovered a new feature on an appliance. "I wonder if I could have the honor. Your beef is always the best."

"Since you're both free," Nathaniel said, already reaching for the remote, "why don't you cook together. Vivi can show you a few things."

I looked at him for a long moment. Five years, and this was apparently what I'd become to him — a resource. Something you hand off to teach your mistress how to run a household neither of them would ever let me actually have.

"Give me a minute," I said, and went to the kitchen alone.

They didn't offer to help. Nathaniel had never once thought cooking was hard. Nothing was hard when someone else always did it for him. I heard the television come on behind me, their laughter over something on the screen with obvious ease that this wasn’t new to them.

When I came out, the coffee table was a disaster. Crumbs ground into the cushions, drink rings on the tablecloth I'd chosen myself two Christmases ago. Chloe stood to help carry plates and nearly tripped over her own feet, and Nathaniel caught her elbow like she was made of glass, his hand sliding automatically to her stomach to check.

"Careful. Just sit."

She stuck her tongue out at him, delighted to be fussed over, and I set the last dish down harder than I meant to.

At the table, Chloe pushed her food around and finally set her fork down. "Vivi, why is everything so salty?"

"Must have gotten heavy-handed with the salt." I ate the one unsalted vegetable on my own plate and didn't apologize.

"I think it's very good," Nathaniel said loyally, the way you'd praise a child's drawing. Then, to Chloe, "she's a natural in the kitchen, honestly. Once the baby's here, Vivi would probably be wonderful with kids too — better than either of us, maybe. Might be nice, having her around to help."

The room went very quiet in my head, even though nothing around me actually stopped.

He meant it as a compliment. That was the part I couldn't get past, that he wasn't even being cruel on purpose. In his mind, this was generosity. The wife who couldn't have children of her own, kept close enough to help raise someone else's. A door prize with a marriage certificate for a job title.

I set my fork down. "I'm full. Excuse me."

I didn't wait for a response.

Behind me, Chloe's voice pitched soft and wounded. "Nathan, I really can't eat this."

"I'll have something else sent up," he said. "Wait here, I need to talk to Vivi about something."

I heard his footsteps behind me down the hall, and I was still deciding what I'd say to him when he stopped dead in the doorway of the closet.

I turned. He was standing very still, staring at the wide gaps where my clothes should have been, my empty side of the shelf, the missing luggage.

"Vivi." His voice had lost every ounce of its earlier warmth. "Where are your clothes? Where's your bag?"